


A Place Called Home

by hhaikyuuties



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Coffeeshop AU, M/M, but never posted it, but vague and only short mentions, college age keith and lance, here goes nothing, i wrote this in like august, klance, sort of, tw: abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-03
Updated: 2017-01-03
Packaged: 2018-09-14 10:29:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9177043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hhaikyuuties/pseuds/hhaikyuuties
Summary: “Ah, Keith! Old pal, didn’t know you got yourself a coffee shop gig,” the boy, Lance, remarked snarkily, throwing his navy blazer over his shoulder.  Leaning an elbow on the counter and cocking out a hip slightly, he threw Keith that asshole look he had to deal with through far too many classes.  Keith would’ve killed to seen the expression on the other end of the stupid Lance facial expression spectrum, when his features were contorted into a mixture of frustration, embarrassment, and anger, like when Keith beat his midterm exam score and Lance rudely grabbed the test out of his hands to compare their grades.  Some things money can’t buy.Money could buy a latte, however, and the ability to annoy the tired, overworked barista in the process.





	

All Keith wanted to do, really, was to finish his shift uneventfully, close up shop, and enjoy some Chinese takeout in his second-rate apartment.  Unfortunately, the universe was intent on punishing him from some horrendous deed in a past life—or at least he figured, since he didn’t think he currently deserved the kind of torture that walked in on two feet through the front door, breezily crossing the threshold into the shop, long legs revealing just a trace of youthful awkwardness that hadn’t phased out quite yet.

When their eyes met, Keith first encountered mutual shock as the other boy’s face almost sweetly took the shape of innocent surprise.  Inevitably, the situation quickly degraded as the newcomer reclaimed his composure.

“Ah, Keith! Old pal, didn’t know you got yourself a coffee shop gig,” the boy, Lance, remarked snarkily, throwing his navy blazer over his shoulder.  Leaning an elbow on the counter and cocking out a hip slightly, he threw Keith that asshole look he had to deal with through far too many classes.  Keith would’ve killed to seen the expression on the other end of the stupid Lance facial expression spectrum, when his features were contorted into a mixture of frustration, embarrassment, and anger, like when Keith beat his midterm exam score and Lance rudely grabbed the test out of his hands to compare their grades.  Some things money can’t buy.

Money could buy a latte, however, and the ability to annoy the tired, overworked barista in the process.

“Yeah, at least I didn’t get myself an asshole gig.”  Keith’s dark eyes met Lance’s sharply, the hate a palpable undercurrent between the two.

“Hey hey, just because you washed out doesn’t give you a reason to call me names.  What are you, five?”  Lance had not matured at all in the weeks he hadn’t seen him, although something nagged at the back of Keith’s mind, some notion that Lance’s face had aged just the slightest, that his posture and gaze had moved a little closer to man from boy.  Naturally, Keith pushed these obtrusive and ridiculous half-thoughts from his mind, although his observations would be preserved in a file in his head, waiting to be re-examined later.

Keith exhaled audibly.  “Order your damn latte.”

“Sheesh, way to treat a customer.  I might have to complain to your mana—” 

Lance was cut off by a raised fist, a nonverbal threat on which Keith very well might deliver.  Lance apparently wasn’t demonic enough to get Keith fired so early into his coffee pouring days, or simply didn’t want a black eye, so he complied.

“A large blended mocha, with a pump of white chocolate…and ooh, extra of those chocolate crumble things on top of the whip cream.  And do you make those cookies?”  Lance pointed to a case with a variety of cookies.  A couple kinds had sold out given the late hour, but Lance’s eyes were clearly set on a chocolate monstrosity on the shelf. 

Keith was practically ill at the amount of sugar he was hearing, edges of his mouth turning down both in disgust at the order and annoyance at Lance’s inability to make anything simple.  “No, I did not.”

“I shoulda guessed you can’t bake.”  Lance’s smirk was teasing, challenging, goading.

_Calm_ , Keith told himself, _you’ll just make it worse_. 

“So do you want one, or not?”  He wasn’t sure whether to squeeze his eyes shut in frustration or bore a hole in Lance’s head with his glare.

“Well I guess since you didn’t make them, they are safe.”

“I’m going to kill you.”

“Nope.  You’re going to make me my drink and sell me one of those triple chocolate cookies.”  Lance flicked the nametag pinned on Keith’s apron, the devil playing along the edges of his lips.

“You have no manners.”

“I should be saying that to you.  I’m your customer, and you have been treating me rather rudely.”

“If you don’t pay up and go away, you are not going to be my customer much longer.”  The threat dripped from his words, nerves clearly frayed.  Well, it was past dinnertime, and Keith lacked the mental energy to do much of anything, much less deal with Lance’s childish games. 

Lance shrugged, feigning nonchalance, and casually handed Keith a $10 bill, folded in half between two fingers.  “Keep the change.”

Angrily but silently, Keith went to work blending up the horrendous concoction, oblivious to the curious gaze directed at him by the other boy.

*

“So who was that guy you were flirting with yesterday?”  
Keith almost spit out his coffee, his precious break-time energy boost in liquid form.

“Excuse me?”

Pidge, his co-worker and dare he say friend, shrugged.  “You know, that boy you seemed to know.”

“Are you kidding me?  The biggest pain in the ass I’ve ever met, we hate each other, I don’t know why he didn’t just turn around and leave when he recognized me.”

Pidge made a noncommittal noise of agreement that indicated they clearly did not agree but would not press the issue.  At least for now.

***

His mind wandered back to freshman year, when he was sentenced to a group project with Lance.  Apparently, such assignments were not always abandoned in high school; his business management course threw him into the mix with another student named—for some reason unknown to him—Hunk.  Hunk was possibly the nicest student Keith had encountered at the university—albeit Hunk’s friendship with Lance—and had, hands down, the best recommendations for good, affordable food near campus.  He remembered clearly how Hunk had brought them a box of donuts around midnight during a last-minute scramble to pull together their work, the calorie bombs giving off a delightfully fresh, fried aroma—what kind of donut shop was open at that hour, Keith had no idea at the time, but it was genius—and the sweet treat alleviated their bitter, grumpy moods.  Lance, rarely on time for a team meeting and prone to downplaying time crunches, was a stark contrast to Hunk, who was always ahead of time and fairly paranoid about getting the work done (which made Keith wonder how he could be friends with a guy like Lance, but maybe their personalities evened out or something).  But at the end of the day, their presentation turned out pretty damn well and flowed well from person to person, a feat Keith was still trying to comprehend.

Keith still hung out with Hunk sometimes, but initially tried to avoid seeing Lance on such occasions—he already saw enough of him since he had a class with him every semester, by some curse—although that inevitably proved futile, and the three would play video games or chow down on burritos together.  Snide remarks countered insults countered sarcasm in Lance and Keith’s verbal exchanges, but looking back, Keith couldn’t say he hated Lance one hundred percent of the time.

When Lance accepted the job position that Keith rejected, though, their communication stopped abruptly.  To Lance, it would probably appear to be jealousy, or bitterness, in the wake of being kicked out of an internship, but Lance didn’t know even the premise of the story.  Keith would rather his rival think what he wanted than explain the reality, and the lack of obnoxious late-night texts and the end of pizza Fridays were a price that could be paid.  Keith had grown used to the increased quietness in his life that came with increased social isolation.  Hunk clearly knew something was off, that neither he nor Lance really knew what happened, but refrained from pressing the issue.  Lance, perhaps slightly hurt at the onset, quickly became fairly arrogant about the whole ordeal, calling Keith a dropout and pissing him off.  After all, Keith had his reasons, and didn’t regret his decision to turn down his offer; he did, however, find himself missing the random, unplanned car trips with the two other boys.  Keith remembered the image of Hunk, exasperated, in the driver’s seat as Lance and Keith bickered over shotgun, the two subsequently taking off in a sprint to see who would claim the seat.

***

_One more year,_ Keith thought, _and then I can go far away._

***

Lance came in later that week, and a couple times the week after that.  He complained about how overworked he was; he boasted about his vaguely defined “summer intern project” whenever Keith pointed out he was whining.  It was unspoken but apparent to both of them that Lance was trying to patch things up, although why things needed patching up was surely a mystery to Lance.  Keith had to give him some credit for trying, but _why_ he was even trying was beyond him.

*

“You know,” Lance began one day, having welcomed himself across the table from Keith during his break, “that is one ugly-ass painting.”  Lance gestured to a canvas behind Keith with his large cup of glorified, overpriced sugar, the long straw sticking out of the top.

“Oh, that?  It’s a student piece, we display some of the art majors’ work in here and rotate it every once in a while and well, that made it on the wall this time.”

“I’m not sure if it’s supposed to be a man summoning demons or a lake within a forest.”

Keith narrowed his eyes.  “Neither.  And why are you talking, you probably couldn’t draw if I put a gun to your head.”

“Oh yeah?  I’ll have you know I’m a great artist.  I got an A in my drawing class when I was in high school—”

What followed was an art competition, on the shop’s napkins, to see who could create the better masterpiece.

(Some days later, Keith would find Lance’s napkin again, having kept it in a drawer in his room against all reason; the drawing depicted an angry Keith, complete with satanic horns, handing Lance an oddly shaped cup of coffee.  The piece was titled _World’s Bitchiest Barista._ )

*

Their playful back-and-forth had fallen into a steady, almost comfortable pattern, but the wavelength had been disturbed, thrown out of whack due to the whole internship ordeal.  So even though Lance had tried, and began, to reestablish some semblance of friendship, something unspoken still hung in the air.  So, when Lance asked Keith to join him for a drink, he was surprised.  And when he accepted, he was even more surprised.

*

Keith thought about it, but could not figure out why Lance invited him out.

“So, what’s the catch?” Keith asked, eyes narrowing, after the bartender took their order.

“Me, I’m the catch,” Lance responded automatically, that characteristic, stupid grin crossing his face.

Keith rolled his eyes.

“Buddy,” Lance chided, clapping him on the back with a warm hand, “not everything is a conspiracy.”

*

Keith took a small sip of his gin and tonic, placing the sparkling glass back down on the polished, dark wood.  Keith wasn’t much of a drinker, and was unable to fully grasp the appeal of alcohol, but that was okay—he was enjoying Lance’s company much more than the overpriced liquid, whether he would admit it or not.  The two reminisced about old times, misguided adventures and questionable classmates and wild occurrences.  And Keith was able to smile—simply, truth smile—in a way so rare to him as of late.

Lance laughed, tilting his head back a little, revealing a bit of his neck and drawing attention to his collarbones, sharp and perfect, which disappeared into the neatly ironed collar of his fancy button-down shirt, the top couple of buttons undone in that arrogant-casual way that Keith largely attributed to false bravado.  He wondered whether insecurity was hidden between him and his suit jacket, whether he had to iron out his nervousness like wrinkles in his shirt.

He was more than distracting, irritatingly so, and as much as Keith loathed it, he craved it on some unfathomable level.  He wanted to press an ear against that chest and hear the laughter rumble through, to try to feel the emotion escaping the boy’s mouth in chuckles and snide comments.

As distracted as he was, though, Keith managed to pull his gaze away and maintain some composure, allowing himself the slight smile appropriate in the situation but masking the near-pain that spread its tendrils quietly throughout his consciousness.

Lance sat up a bit straighter to raise his glass towards Keith. 

“Cheers?”

“Cheers.”

*

“You went out drinking?” Shiro, Keith’s roommate, asked incredulously, eyeing Keith cautiously.  “With who?”

“Just a classmate,” Keith claimed, but when Shiro pressed, he told him. 

“Oh, the jerk who wanted the stupid job and never shows up on time to study,” Shiro recalled, before narrowing his eyes, “Interesting.”

Keith didn’t like that look in Shiro’s eyes; it was a harbinger of thought, of theories and the subsequent teasing.

*

Keith had told Shiro offhandedly that the reason he rejected the job was because of someone in the organization, someone who had history with his family.  He offered vague statements and no detail; Shiro accepted it, knowing when pressed Keith would just push back harder.  And that was something Keith appreciated about Shiro—he was a natural leader, someone who would listen and observe and advise but knew where boundaries were and when someone needed their own space.

***

The following Monday, Keith tried in vain to stop Lance from spilling to Pidge an embarrassing story they had recalled during their quasi-date; his hand flew to Lance’s face in a sad attempt to stop any sound coming from the boy, but Lance easily sidestepped.

“Come on!  I thought we had a bonding moment during that conversation!”  Keith groaned, slamming a hand on the counter as he leaned across it.

“Nuh-uh, don’t remember, didn’t happen,” Lance sing-songed, crossing his arms defiantly and smiling all the while.

(When Lance lightly poked Keith’s cheek in response to the barista’s moody pout, Pidge would verbally label it a “bonding moment,” but both boys pretended they didn’t hear that comment.)

***

Keith watched the interaction: the girl’s laugh and hand gestures he could only describe as _fluttery_ , the casual smile on Lance’s lips, and the lack of distance between the two bodies.  Lance had always been a failure at flirting and never had a steady girlfriend as long as he knew him, but he was at his games again, and this time Keith felt an angry pulse rock his veins, reason unknown to him and the emotion entirely unwelcome, but unrelenting.

To be fair, Keith didn’t know the situation and since he was the one walking past Lance’s place of employment, it was really none of his business, but he couldn’t reason away the uncertainty in his stomach with logical arguments.  He figured Lance had invited him out the other night so that the two could catch up and mend their broken friendship but he realized that he had, naively and dangerously, been fantasizing that it had been more.

*

Lance leaned across the counter in what he obviously thought was a smooth move, grin stretching across his face as his eyes met hers.  Allura, Keith’s employer slash goddess on Earth, did not look impressed.

“Come here often?” Lance flirted unsuccessfully.  _Original._

Allura smiled in a forced but somehow kind manner before stating plainly, “I own this establishment.”

“Wow, beautiful AND powerful.”

“I simply took over what my father entrusted to me,” she replied humbly before walking off without a backwards glance. 

“Come, Coran, we have some matters to discuss,” she said and, with a flick of hair over her shoulder, she disappeared behind the staff doors with Keith’s manager.

“You have no chance with her,” Keith commented, near laughter.

“Oh yeah, and you do?”  Lance crossed his arms and pouted in a manner reminiscent of an 8-year-old boy.

“I am not compelled to hit on my boss.  Or to flirt with anything that moves.”

I response, Keith ended up in a headlock, and had to nearly throw Lance into a table to break free—but not before he saw something barely-there, but strange and almost injured, run across Lance’s face.

***

Lance sat next to a window, eyes focused on some sort of report in front of him.  Keith had rarely seen him so intent—perhaps during final exam week, or the night before a research paper was due.  Lance’s hand went to his hair, ruffling it up messily, childishly, as he scrunched his face at the paper.  Whenever something would click in his mind, Keith could see the comprehension on his face and, one time, Lance even made a fist-pumping motion.  Keith laughed—but it wasn’t malicious, no; it was a sort of small, quiet, happy laugh, one so characteristically _un-Keith_ that he himself wasn’t convinced it occurred.  Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Pidge, who clearly caught him red-handed in his silent enjoyment.  Keith, in response, merely flipped Pidge off with a hand hidden behind the counter.

It’s not like he didn’t already know he was gay.  _Nothing new here, time to mind our own business,_ Keith told himself, but felt his eyes drift back against his will.  He wondered were the line fell between gazing at an attractive member of the male species and staring at Lance.  He quickly decided he did not want to wonder about that—he would rather mull over the ingredient list on the syrup closest to him.

Hazelnut.  _Lance hates this flavor_ , he recalled, _he saw our special drink the other day and said he tried it once, and that it tasted like liquid crayon and—_

_Dammit._

***

“You can cook?” Keith asked incredulously, peering over Lance’s shoulder to observe the pan in front of him.  He wasn’t entirely sure how it happened, but somehow he had ended up in Keith’s apartment, just the two of them, while Lance made them dinner.

“Yeah, used to cook for my siblings sometimes.  Can’t take much credit though, since not only did my mom teach me, this is her recipe, too.”  He smiled fondly, shaking some sort of spice into the pan like it was second nature, no measuring spoon needed.  He stirred its contents and the deep aroma floated upwards.  Keith’s stomach threatened to grumble.

Lance flipped his head around animatedly, almost knocking into Keith’s forehead in the process.  “Bet you can’t cook worth shit,” he teased, lips quirked upward good-naturedly.

“Don’t go laughing at me before you try my killer brownies.”

Lance seemed to perk up at the mention of chocolate.  “Are they really that good?” he inquired, eyes slightly narrowed critically.

Keith moved his mouth close to Lance’s ear, grinning all the while.  “Better than sex,” he whispered.

Lance promptly pulled his face away and reddened, stumbling to the side slightly, spatula practically flying out of his hand.  “Wh-what?”

“Just saying.  It’s an expression.”

“Did you just try to flirt with me?” 

Keith snorted.  “As if.”

“You totally did.”

“You wish.”

“You wish I wish.”

The sizzling in the pan grew more pronounced, a loud _pop_ snapping the two out of their pointless argument.  Lance rushed to adjust the temperature after emitting a rather loud _oh shit_.

“You sure you can cook?”  Keith’s tone was more teasing and less edgy than usual, amusement threaded through his syllables.

“Well excuse me, usually people don’t _flirt_ with me while I’m trying to feed their sorry ass.”

“That’s rich, coming from someone who publicly begs me for snacks multiple times a week.  I’m going to poison your gross sugar coffee crap next time.”

“No, you’re going to bake me brownies.”  Lance looked over his shoulder and winked, seeming to have recovered from his previous shock.  “Since you need to convince me your baking is that good.”

*

Judging by Lance’s blissful expression, the brownies really were top-notch.  Keith donned a cocky grin.

“Told you.”

“I would make love to this brownie.”

“Please don’t.”

“You are the one who compared these to sex first,” Lance pointed out, fingers inching towards another still-warm brownie, the edge just the right crispiness and the perfect amount of chocolate chips melted inside the fudgy square.

“Regrettably,” Keith muttered as Lance tried to lick chocolate off a finger seductively.  Keith raised an eyebrow, not impressed.

“Slutty brownies.”

“Stop,” Keith barked back, hand going to his head as if he had a headache. 

Lance bounced closer and stuck his face in Keith’s, grinning.  “Can I take one home with me?”

“On the first date?” Keith joked back, a laugh escaping his lips, no longer able to feign annoyance with the boy in front of his eyes, the boy far too close for normal mental function.

*

_The dream had the same setting, the same lighting, the same feeling.  Even in a dream, he could practically smell the brownies that sat in the pan he always used._

_It was a projection of his memory.  Except in this version, Lance was licking_ Keith’s _finger, the chocolate mess clearly an excuse.  And in this version, Lance’s attempt at seduction was, Keith had to admit, more successful, and the alien but welcome sensation was—_

Keith stopped himself there, snapping out of unconsciousness and bolting upright through sheer willpower.  His head spun from the abruptness and he dizzily plopped backed down, nearly screaming in frustration.

“What the _hell_ ,” he spat—quietly, as not to wake up his apartment mate.  Alerting Shiro would, after all, end up in him having to explain himself, and Shiro could pick out a lie or excuse better than anyone else he knew.  Not that the truth would surprise Shiro or anything.  After all, Shiro had walked in on Lance smearing brownie batter on Keith’s face during the process of devouring the remnants in the mixing bowl, the taller boy’s fingers leaving the sugary substance on the other’s skin in response to some insult or another.  Keith had to deal with lovers’ quarrel quips and jokes about domesticity for at least three days after that, the comments subtle and cleverly fit into their daily interactions.

 ***

Lance strode in, sporting an annoyed expression as he carried a couple very large company binders into the shop.  The sight of the corporate logo made a chill run down Keith’s spine, the image a harsh but quiet reminder of reality, like an unexpected cold wind in the midst of winter.  Lance’s eyes followed his line of sight and, upon realization, the corners of Lance’s lips edged downwards.  Keith’s eyes hastily flew away as he feigned nonchalance. 

“I work with a bunch of assholes.”

“Yeah, I know,” Keith muttered in reply, smoothing out an imaginary wrinkle in his logo-embellished apron.  Asshole was a nice way to put it, but he wasn’t about to go into the messy details now.  Not here, not with this person, maybe not anywhere to anyone.

***

Keith’s head shot up abruptly and he took in the zombie-like figure in front of him, the pale face featuring dull purple-gray under lifeless eyes.  Keith may or may not have flinched before smoothly covering it up.  His hand may or may not have twitched while he donned a straight face, fingers itching to reach out to the person in front of him—a rather human emotion for someone who craved isolation, Keith thought to himself, but hell if he understood these things.

“You look like hell.”

“Wow, thanks for the support.”  Lance’s expression was halfway between a frown and indifference.  Lack of sleep clouded his eyes and preoccupation made his gaze wander.

“You’re welcome, as always,” Keith retorted cheekily, but he felt concern clear in his features and knew Lance, too, could see the worry there.  “Your usual?”

“Nah, I need something _strong_ , man,” Lance groaned, half-collapsing in front of the register and almost knocking over a basket of granola bars in the process.

“This isn’t a bar.”  Keith earned a glare in response, although sleep deprivation definitely minimized its effectiveness. 

“Just please.” 

It was more of a plea than a whine, for once, and under different circumstances Keith would have mocked Lance.  But deciding to spare the poor man—an easy target wasn’t all that fun, anyway—Keith made Lance’s frilly coffee, throwing a couple extra shots of expresso into the blender with everything else.

“If you crash, don’t blame me,” Keith warned, sliding the drink across the counter to Lance, who had been watching the whole process.  Lance groaned but grabbed the cup with one hand as his other went to dig out his wallet.

“Deal, thanks.  How much?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Keith said, but before Lance could respond, a protest arose from the other end of the coffee machine.  “Chill, Coran, I’ll cover it.”

Lance tried to protest, but Keith waved his opposition away lazily.  At that moment, Pidge came up behind Keith, lightly touching his arm.

“Time for my shift, if you wanted to continue one of your lovers’ quarrels elsewhere.”  The two boys simultaneously narrowed their eyes at Pidge’s comment, protest heavy in the air.  Pidge shrugged before making a fake noncommittal humming noise and walking off to restock the snack display.

.***

Since Keith’s shift was over, he seized the opportunity—since when did he get the nerve, or have the desire to know so much about Lance?--to ask Lance what was nagging at him.  And, to his surprise, it was not work related.  It was, Keith would learn, much more personal and infinitely more important than a stupid internship.  Upon realizing it was a sensitive, emotional matter, Keith invited Lance back to his apartment, and the two of them conversed freely.

As a child, Lance’s uncle was his idol.  He was successful, building a business from scratch and hiring others; he was a good father, finding time for his children and playing basketball with them in their driveway on Saturdays; he was a kind man, helping out friends and volunteering at the yearly 5k fundraiser; and he was funny, his humor bringing smiles to the faces of friends and strangers alike.  What he proved to be, though, was an entirely different person: someone small and bitter, and quick to judge and slow to listen. 

Lance spoke of what his uncle told him—the same thing his uncle has told his own son, Lance’s cousin.  Like how he wouldn’t be taken seriously at work.  How he was a role model for his younger brothers.  How if you were gay you’d become someone else and be persecuted and treated differently and would get AIDS and never have children and lose friends. 

“That’s all so stupid, and as annoying as you are, you don’t deserve it,” Keith managed, mouth dry and voice threatening to waver.

*

“I’ve been forcing myself to keep up appearances,” he began, sighing in defeat as he revealed such a secret, “because it’s hard to fall short of expectations, and a mess to deal with the resulting conflict from something like this.  I already see the way they look at my gay cousin.”  Lance’s words held no hope, as if the walls echoed the sounds hollowly. 

“Maybe you are judging yourself by the wrong expectations,” Keith responded lightly, painfully meeting Lance’s eyes.  Lance quickly looked away.  Keith had never seen Lance close to real tears before, but something sad shone in Lance’s eyes now.

“Sometimes you don’t get to choose the expectations imposed on you, but you sure as hell have to deal with the fallout if you screw up.”

“Being gay doesn’t make you a screw-up.”

Lance worriedly caught Keith’s eyes again, choking out an apology.  “Keith, that was not what I meant at all, please don’t think that I—”

Clearly, Lance had already caught on that Keith wasn’t straight—not that Keith was particularly trying to hide it.

“I know,” Keith replied, brushing off Lance’s concern that he was hurt his words, “But you should treat yourself as fairly as you treat your friends, you know?”  Keith’s gaze wavered, embarrassed by the sincerity and cheesiness of the comment, but he knew that it needed to be said.

All at once yet in slow motion, Lance leaned closer to Keith, his face drawing closer. 

“You should take your own advice, you know,” the brunette murmured, the sound creating a subtle vibration that somehow reached Keith’s core. 

Quiet breaths danced across Keith’s cheek as Lance sat frozen in place, his eyes uncertain but clear as crystal, transparent as glass.  Keith itched to close the distance between them, to feel the soft curve of Lance’s neck under his lips or Lance’s disheveled hair under his fingertips.  But he figured that kind of thing was not what Lance needed at the moment; flirting with the boundaries of their friendship while Lance was having a sexuality crisis would be out of line, and Keith didn’t want to injure him further. 

“Can I try something?” Lance asked, a red flush lightly spreading across his features.

The request caught Keith off-guard; he blanched the slightest because, despite everything, a part of him still feared the hurt that this one man could impose on him with as much as a phrase or brush of fingers.

He felt more than saw Lance look away.  Something surged through Keith then, something turning his veins hot and cold in a single instant.

“Go ahead.”

Lance’s eyes flicked back up at the sound.  His uncontained shift from shame to surprise ran across his face, the crease in his forehead relaxing and corners of his lips hovering between a frown and a smile, the threshold being tested as some sort of calculation ran through is head.

His lips stopped a hairsbreadth away from Keith’s, the sliver of air between them like the beginnings of a storm.  Lance hung his head.

“I can’t do this,” he laughed humorlessly, his hand grabbing onto Keith’s arm as if in support, “I feel like I’m taking advantage of you.”

He moved his head back up, allowing their eyes to meet.  Keith closed the distance.

And then everything Keith could feel was Lance, his lips and skin and breath, his hands and fingertips on his neck as he reciprocated the gesture.  Keith could have lost himself to that moment forever, dragged it on as far as the universe could possibly allow, but he managed to part their lips, Lance emitting something between a groan and a hum.  Keith moved his mouth to Lance’s ear. 

“Do you really think I’d let you get away with that?” he taunted, a laugh dancing upon his tongue.

“Point taken.”  Lance’s voice was nervous and also a little shy, the sound of it almost making Keith chuckle.

(“You’re so gay for me it’s adorable,” Lance would later tease, that stupid grin stretching his face to its limits.)

***  
Lance’s fingers danced upon his back, tracing each line and dip with unconcealed curiosity.  Keith hummed.

But then Lance twitched suddenly, right hand hovering over the scar Keith had naively forgotten about.

“What this from?” Lance asked whisper-quiet in his ear.

Keith couldn’t bring himself to lie; Lance had tried to be so painfully straightforward with him, and as easy as it would be to come up with a mundane story, he just couldn’t.

“I…I’d rather not go into it,” he replied instead, honest if nothing else.  The resulting confusion on Lance’s face was apparent.

“Keeping secrets?” Lance pretended to tease, but they both knew there was no humor in the words.

“Am I not allowed?”  Pain ran across Lance’s features before they clouded over with a dark sort of acceptance.

“Yeah, yeah I guess you are,” he answered, but Keith felt Lance’s hands ball into fists under his shirt, Lance’s knuckles brushing the bare skin of his back.  Despite everything, the situation and the emotions and the gap forming in between the two of the, Keith shivered.

“Look, Lance,” he sighed painstakingly, doing his best to make eye contact, “Don’t take this personally.  There’s just some things I don’t like to talk about, for my own selfish reasons, alright?”

Lance was clearly still hurt, but retreated.

“Never thought I’d live to see the day when you would admit to being selfish with your own lips,” he joked, palms pressed warmly against Keith’s skin once again.

“Well if you would have kept them occupied like you were supposed to, I wouldn’t have had this problem,” Keith muttered grumpily, but a small smile crept up his face with the realization that maybe, just maybe, everything would be okay.

***

If only things were that simple.  Just days later, Keith was coldly thrown back into reality. 

Lance had just gotten off work and was pestering Keith, as usual, as he left the coffee shop.  But usually, Lance’s laughter did not cut off abruptly.  Usually, the color did not drain from his face.  The violent shift prompted Keith to twist around.  He, too, froze as his eyes fell upon the suit-clad man he hoped to never see, the person who was behind his realities and his nightmares.

*

_The face hovered above him, veins angry and evident among the reddening skin, eyes deadest on him._

You have her eyes, _the face told him._

And her hair, _it continued, a hand shooting out to grab a fistful of his slightly overgrown locks._

***

The man walked past them wordlessly, a simple nod in Lance’s direction, but Lance’s reaction had clearly not been that of an intern in the face of his senior at work. 

Although you would never hear him admit it out loud, Keith knew that Lance was a pretty intelligent person.  That he was fairly good, albeit occasionally awkward, in social situations.  That he could make anyone laugh and everyone smile.

What he was really bad at, though, was faking anything.  It was always obvious if he was hiding something, whether it be feigning ignorance or uttering a lie. 

So it was no surprise that when Lance knew something but was pretending that he didn’t, his words and body language would give it away almost immediately to anyone close with him, Keith included. 

Keith, eyes squinted in irritation and near-anger, asked him what he knew; Lance tried to talk his way out of it, claiming he didn’t know what Keith was going on about, but the guilt poisoned his usual smile and dimmed the brightness typically found in his deep blue eyes.

“I know about your dad.”

Keith blanched before the rage came rolling in. 

“That man is not my father.”

“Okay, the supplier of your Y chromosome.”

“Good to know you took biology, asshole.”

Lance, guilt-ridden, was clearly about to apologize, but Keith cut him off, asking him _when_ and _who_ and _how_.  Lance only needed to utter the words _the photograph_ before Keith understood: the shot of his mother and that man, smiling as they stood hand-in-hand in front of a quaint little storefront, perhaps an Italian restaurant, was an item he kept in his desk drawer.  It was near at hand and therefore, unfortunately, within Lance’s reach.  Despite his aging, one of the men Lance worked with was clearly the same man as Keith’s father in the photograph.

“You went through my stuff.”

“I didn’t mean to,” Lance began, but his defeated posture gave away how he knew Keith didn’t want to hear any explanations or excuses.  Keith’s scar—the same one that inevitably sparked Lance’s worries—seemed to throb.

“You disregarded my privacy and pried—”

“I was concerned,” Lance stressed, throwing his arms out for emphasis.  His voice threatened to crack at the end as raw emotion bubbled up.  But even such sincerity could not right wrongs.

***

It wasn’t an accident, _he heard his grandmother tell another relative when she thought they were alone.  But Keith didn’t need to hear the words because he already knew they were true; the emotions his mother felt ran through his veins as well, and her reasons scarred his back and colored his pale skin purple-blue._

_Her limp wrist, he heard, wore a childish string of beads—a bracelet he had made in class for Mother’s Day._

_Don’t let him near you again_ , his mother’s words echoed in his head.

And as much as he wanted revenge, he could not disobey his mother’s one wish of him, the sole thing she asked despite protecting him so many times and in so many ways.  

Sure, she had left him, and the rest of the world, but the last words she would leave behind would be for his sake, a plea to her parents to help him live on.

***

When Lance showed up at his apartment door, rain dripping from the tips of his hair, Keith had half a mind to completely ignore him.  But something genuine emanated from the boy’s sorry appearance, and despite all internal argument to the contrary, Keith’s door was soon opened.

“You have two minutes,” Keith allowed, not making eye contact.

Lance cut right to the chase.  “He hurt you, didn’t he?”

“And why do you think that man ‘hurt’ me?” Keith asked scathingly, not even trying to hide his irritation.  It would be pointless to actually try to delude Lance—the boy wasn’t a complete idiot.  Keith’s refusal to work for the company, his scarred flesh, and the face he made upon seeing his own blood father made the truth visible enough to Lance.

“Apparently one of the company’s female employees had almost said something about him but it never came to light.  One of the people I work with—a mentor of sorts—has been there long enough, and has an important enough position, to have heard about the incident.”

“What did he do to her?”

“Hit her, supposedly, but she didn’t want her fiancé to find out she was sleeping with the guy, so she went back and forth between whether she should call him out or not.  Plus she was thinking about her job and career, no doubt.”  Lance went on to explain that no, she no longer worked there, since she moved elsewhere with her husband once they were married.  When he was finished, he took a much-needed breath and looked at Keith with unmatched intensity.

“Now, what did he do to _you_?” Lance asked cautiously but urgently, both fire and water in his eyes.

Keith clenched his jaw, profanities and accusations hovering at the tip of his tongue.

Lance fell to his knees, fingers wrapping around Keith’s pale ankles, tremor apparent in his hands.  His _please_ was no more than a strained whisper; his eyes didn’t leave the floor.

Keith felt himself breathing Lance’s name as if a prayer, anger suddenly gone, not in a fading effect but as if it had been wiped away in a single swift but gentle motion.

And then he told him the story, from start to finish, hands intertwined on top of the table as they sat across from each other, Lance’s eyes trained on his face always.  Keith never thought he could speak of such things in any amount, but he heard them, at times as if an outside observer, flow from his mouth to Lance’s ears; Lance’s warm gaze and the brush of his thumbs, however, made it undeniable that the scene was real. 

Keith explained how he didn’t know who the man was; no one would tell him and he was too young to realize how to find identifying evidence.  His grandparents we probably decent people, he supposed; but between their unexpected, uncomfortable predicament with their daughter’s son—she had already made her relationship with them strained and pulled taut like a violin string—and Keith’s closed-off nature after his mother’s death, “home” and “family” were foreign concepts to him, and he lived by himself as soon as possible.  The idea of having a father or siblings was foreign to him; in Keith’s eyes, even his grandparents’ limited financial support, given how his mother had acted, was perhaps unwarranted.

And Lance listened through all of it, a ghost of a frown threatening his features at times, interest and concern mixing to etch something genuine in his expression.  Keith never imagined he could speak of this, especially not in detail and with his soul bare, and especially not to Lance, who was his rival, friend, enemy, borderline boyfriend, and a general annoyance and incorrigible flirt all rolled into one.

*

He traced each of Keith’s scars with his fingers, and then with his lips; the touch was meant to comfort and—Keith thought, and maybe hoped—love.  But there was an undercurrent, slight and contained but present, that held a deadly anger, a streak of protectiveness that was stronger than Keith could have imagined. 

(“You are almost as protective of me as you seem to be of your own family, idiot,” Keith would pretend to joke later in his curiosity. 

“Keith,” Lance would reply, “You idiot.  You _are_ part of my family.”)

***

The face on the screen made Keith do a double-take. 

“What the hell.”  It was an accusation, not a question.  Keith pointed to the screen.

“Oh, um, would you look at that, sometimes the timing of things just—” Lance floundered, hand moving to the back of his neck nervously and eyes bouncing from floor to ceiling.

“Stop screwing around and tell me what happened.”

“I sort of maybe found evidence of that guy misusing company funds and, um, maybe helped get him fired and in legal trouble.” 

“What.”

“Yeah, well, I couldn’t just _not_ do anything, you know?  First of all you’re my friend and second of all I kind of love you, and that asshole—”

“I hate you,” Keith yelled, and then jumped at Lance, lips meeting lips.  Lance could’ve swore he felt a tear fall form Keith’s face as their mouths moved together; but their kiss didn’t taste like sadness—it tasted like forgiveness and promise.

***

“So you’ll finally forgive me?” Keith grinned but doubt still preyed upon the curve of his smile.

“Oh, I don’t know, I think there are still some things you need to make up for.”  And Keith kissed him, letting himself believe that maybe, just maybe, the boy in front of him really loved him.

“I’m starting to think…that could be arranged…” Lance breathed.  He was clearly distracted by Keith’s fingers tracing his neck; Keith loved it.  Lance’s mouth was pliant under Keith’s; Keith had never felt so close to another person, or so close to something real.

And Keith thought that maybe, just maybe, he had finally discovered the place called home.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Probably should've posted this in August but better late than never, I guess? Comments are much appreciated! I hope you enjoyed reading :)
> 
> As always, thanks to my sister for being my first reader!


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